TidBITS#918/10-Mar-08
=====================
Issue link:
Last week's announcement of the iPhone software development kit may
be one of the most significant events of the year - Adam and Glenn
look at what Apple said and how software developers responded. The
iPhone SDK is just the latest in a string of successes for Apple
that catapulted the company to the top of Fortune Magazine's list of
Most Admired Companies. One area that Apple has ignored, however, is
the nascent ebook reader market, despite having the best platform in
the iPod touch and the best online retail experience in the iTunes
Store. In an open letter to Steve Jobs, Adam lays out the case for
why Apple should enter this market. In the world of updates, we look
at Aperture 2.0.1, which adds support for AppleScript, and "Take
Control of Customizing Leopard" 1.1, which adds coverage of changes
in the Mac OS X 10.5.2 update. Last, but by no means least, Rich
Mogull takes a break from computer security to wire his house for
audio using Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil and, well, no wires.
Articles
Apple Tops Fortune's Most Admired Companies List
Aperture 2.0.1 Update Enhanced by AppleScript
Take Control News: Get Up-to-Date Help Customizing Mac OS X 10.5.2
Airfoil Plays Home Audio Wirelessly
Open Letter to Steve Jobs: In Support of an iPod reader
Apple Announces iPhone 2.0, Releases SDK
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/10-Mar-08
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Apple Tops Fortune's Most Admired Companies List
------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst
article link:
Fortune Magazine has put Apple at the top of its America's Most
Admired Companies list, ahead of Google (#4) and Microsoft (#16).
(Apple also topped the Global Top 20 list, which included companies
from other countries.) The list ranks companies on innovation,
people management, use of corporate assets, social responsibility,
quality of management, financial soundness, long-term investment,
and quality of products/services. In the Computers category (which
includes hardware manufacturers like IBM, HP, and Dell), Apple
ranked first in innovation, people management, and quality of
products/services, fifth in social responsibility, and third in the
other attributes. More impressive was that Apple took the top
ranking in innovation in the entire survey, beating out firms like
Nike, Herman Miller, and Walt Disney.
Also be sure to check out Fortune's extended coverage of Apple,
including Betsy Morris's "What Makes Apple Golden" and Peter
Elkind's lengthy "The Trouble with Steve Jobs." The latter piece
focuses on Jobs's bout with pancreatic cancer and the options
backdating scandal, covering both in a level of detail I hadn't
previously seen.
Aperture 2.0.1 Update Enhanced by AppleScript
---------------------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson
article link:
Maintenance updates generally don't offer much more than bug fixes,
which makes last week's release of Aperture 2.0.1 stand out. The
update provides an array of performance and stability improvements
(called out by category, though, without specifics of what was
changed), and Apple also rolled in enhanced AppleScript support.
A page in the AppleScript section of the company's Web site
demonstrates how a page layout program such as Adobe InDesign CS3
can fetch an image directly from the Aperture library, using the
photo's generated preview within the InDesign document. When the
image is edited in Aperture, the changes are reflected in InDesign
without re-importing the new version. A video explains fingerprinted
previews, the new method that Aperture uses to keep its previews and
source files linked together using unique identifying codes.
(Incidentally, the two videos on that page use Apple's Victoria
text-to-speech voice for the narration instead of a human voiceover,
a practice I've not noticed before. It took a few seconds to pick
out what was "wrong" - the occasional clipped words and odd
pronunciations that indicated an artificial voice.)
Aperture 2.0.1 is available via Software Update or as a 43.9 MB
standalone download (a valid serial number is required to download
the latter version).
Take Control News: Get Up-to-Date Help Customizing Mac OS X 10.5.2
------------------------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst
article link:
We just released a new 1.1 version of Matt Neuburg's "Take Control
of Customizing Leopard," which adds several important pieces of
information for working with new options in Mac OS X 10.5.2,
including how to toggle menu bar translucency and the reflective
Dock, and how to take control of your stacks. It also integrates
discussion of new aspects of the Time Machine interface and includes
a few bits of advice - like how to put the Finder in all your spaces
- that have come to light as we've worked with the shipping version
of Leopard. If you're interested in learning more about customizing
the latest version of Leopard, pick up a copy today.
We are especially happy about this release - free to those who own
the 1.0 version - because had we created it as a traditional printed
book, thousands of obsolete copies would be sitting on reader and
bookstore shelves all over the world, and we'd have no elegant way
to update those books to cover Leopard's changes. Those of you who
already own the 1.0 version can download the update by clicking the
Check for Updates link in the upper right corner of the first page.
Airfoil Plays Home Audio Wirelessly
-----------------------------------
by Rich Mogull
article link:
As a user and reviewer of software it's rare to find an application
that focuses entirely on performing a single task, and performing it
well. All too often our software bloats with unnecessary features
and options to appeal to a wide audience, increasing complexity and
hogging valuable system resources. Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil 3.1 is
that rare program that takes a complex task, makes it drop-dead
simple, and includes only what's absolutely necessary. Airfoil is a
near-perfect application that's razor sharp in its focus, and
Zen-like in its simplicity.
One of the more unusual features of Apple's AirPort Express Base
Station is AirTunes, a protocol that enables any computer running
iTunes to stream music to an AirPort Express connected to a stereo.
When it was first released, AirTunes worked only with iTunes and
supported only a single AirPort Express at a time. Many users,
myself included, immediately saw the potential to use the relatively
inexpensive AirPort Express to stream synchronized music throughout
our homes, replicating the functionality of whole-home audio systems
that cost thousands of dollars.
Airfoil was born out of the demand for a critical missing feature in
AirTunes: the capability to stream from applications other than
iTunes. The first version did just that - it brought AirTunes-like
streaming to other applications. Version 2 then closed the gap on
another valuable feature - the capability to stream to multiple base
stations at once. Although Apple later added support for multiple
device streaming, AirTunes is still limited to iTunes and still
supports streaming only to the AirPort Express or Apple TV. With the
current Airfoil 3.1, Rogue Amoeba has extended beyond just the
AirPort Express, making it possible to stream synchronized audio to
Macs and PCs (using client software) along with Apple TVs, and
AirPort Express base stations.
I was an early adopter of Airfoil 3.1, but rather than rehashing the
straight reviews (like Macworld's excellent coverage) I'll walk
through the features as I describe how I use Airfoil here in my
home. It's one of those applications I use on a daily basis and find
indispensable. In fact, I've designed my entire home audio setup
around it.
I originally purchased an AirPort Express to use as a wireless
access point when I travel and to stream music from iTunes to our
stereo. I've been a subscriber to XM Radio for a while, and the
desire to stream XM audio drove me to purchase Airfoil 1.0
initially. I connected my XM radio to a Mac mini through an iMic USB
audio adapter by Griffin Technologies, and used a free application
also by Rogue Amoeba called LineIn to output the audio to Airfoil,
and thus to my AirPort Express connected to the stereo in our living
room.
The configuration worked well, but was hobbled by a few limitations.
First, although Airfoil could also output audio locally, it wasn't
synchronized with the remote speakers. Local audio would play just a
second or so before the remote speakers. Normally this wasn't a
problem, but if we were entertaining I had to make sure I turned
down the volume on the Mac mini or it would annoy anyone walking
down the hall past that room. The setup also required an AirPort
Express for every location where we wanted audio. Ideally I wanted
to stick the Mac mini in a closet and stream to whatever Mac I was
working on at the time, connected to desktop speakers, and just
output it with the rest of my system audio. I work at home and like
being able to control mute and volume from my keyboard. When we
later added a second AirPort Express, I also noticed a tendency for
dropped connections and audio to drop out of sync.
I enhanced my basic setup with a little simple programming. Airfoil
supports AppleScript, and I was able to make a Web page on the Mac
mini that would execute an AppleScript that let me switch audio
sources and toggle streaming to each AirPort Express. If a
connection dropped I could reset it by going to that Web page from
any browser in the house (including my Sony PSP).
Airfoil 3.0 solved nearly every problem in the previous versions and
added significant functionality. It improved synchronization, which
also seemed to improve connectivity. I have yet to notice any
synchronization issues between multiple AirPort Express units, and
connections seem more stable. Version 3.0 also added full
synchronization of local audio with the remote speakers so the audio
from my Mac mini synced perfectly with the streaming audio.
The most exciting feature of 3.0 was the addition of Airfoil
Speakers - a standalone client application running on a Mac or PC to
accept audio streamed from Airfoil. Before the introduction of this
feature I was unable to include my desktop speakers in my home audio
setup. It seemed silly to purchase another AirPort Express just to
stream audio from my closet to the laptop five feet away, and I
found myself sticking the XM radio on my desk during the workday,
and connecting it to the Mac mini if I wanted to stream it to the
rest of the house. With Airfoil Speakers I now stream XM right from
the radio to my laptop, which is usually connected to a pair of
desktop speakers (although XM offers online streaming, the quality
is materially lower).
Another welcome feature, available since version 2.0, is support for
automatic connections. In the Airfoil preferences you can designate
targets to connect to automatically. This has reduced the need for
my custom Web page, since Airfoil now automatically connects on
launch when my laptop or AirPort Express units are on the network.
One last feature I haven't used much is remote audio streaming of
video content. Due to the delay of sending audio wirelessly, it's
difficult to keep the audio and video from a DVD or other source
synchronized. (In fact, iTunes won't stream the audio for a video to
an AirPort Express, presumably for this reason.) To work around this
problem, Airfoil now includes its own video player. While you can't
use the default DVD Player, the embedded player supports all major
video formats.
But Rogue Amoeba didn't stop there. Soon after the release of
Airfoil 3.0 they released version 3.1, which added support for
streaming to Apple TV. If you use an Apple TV, you no longer need to
stuff an AirPort Express behind your stereo rack. Sure, the Apple TV
also plays iTunes audio, but now you can synchronize that across
multiple rooms.
I hate to admit this, but when we had a new house built last summer
I designed our wiring around Airfoil and AirPort Express units.
Rather than a whole home system, we just put ceiling speakers in our
living/dining room and on the outside patio, wired to the
entertainment nook in our family room. We skipped extra wiring to
the upstairs or bedrooms, knowing we could just add AirPort Express
units if we wanted. We use one AirPort in the family room to cover
all the downstairs speakers, and one upstairs in our bar area
connected to a small shelf stereo system. I have some home
automation software that includes a Web interface for iTunes (Indigo
by Perceptive Automation), that, combined with my own AppleScripts,
lets me change sources and choose songs through my iPhone or any
other Web browser. For the cost of a Mac mini (a really old one),
two AirPort Express base stations, some cheap in-ceiling speakers,
and Airfoil 3.1, our guests are treated to perfectly synchronized,
whole-home audio that I can control from my phone. How cool is that?
Airfoil is also filled with those little touches that really polish
an application. The software itself is simple and respectful of
screen space, and can be hidden in the menu bar. The icons for each
output device or computer represent the nature of that system; a PC
icon for a PC, laptop and desktop icons depending on the Mac, and
different AirPort Express and Apple TV icons. You can control volume
by output device or link everything to system audio, and it includes
an equalizer and robust AppleScript support.
The only problem I've noticed is a lack of consistency with the
automatic streaming feature. It will connect to all devices when
Airfoil initially launches, but only reconnect to Airfoil Speakers
devices as they come on and off the network through the day.
As for the future? It's no secret that with the release of the
iPhone SDK, Rogue Amoeba is thinking about bringing audio streaming
to your pocket. That might be enough to make me finally break down
and get one of those overpriced iPhone docks with speakers for the
bedroom.
Airfoil 3.1 is available as a free trial for Mac OS X and costs $25
for a full license, or a $10 to upgrade from a previous version. A
version for Windows 2000/XP/Vista is also available.
Open Letter to Steve Jobs: In Support of an iPod reader
-------------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst
article link:
Back in January, while talking with John Markoff and David Pogue of
the New York Times after your Macworld Expo keynote, you expressed
skepticism about the Amazon Kindle ebook reader. John Markoff quoted
you as saying, "It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is,
the fact is that people don't read anymore. Forty percent of the
people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole
conception is flawed at the top because people don't read anymore."
That seems an odd thing to say to a pair of writers whose work is
read by millions of people in newspaper and book form. I don't know
where you got that 40 percent number, but other statistics would
seem to disagree. For instance, the Book Industry Study Group, which
has been tracking the U.S. publishing industry for 30 years,
estimates that U.S. book sales in 2006 exceeded 3.1 billion copies,
generating net revenues for U.S. publishers in excess of $35
billion. That's a 3.2 percent increase in revenues over 2005. The
book industry is growing, not shrinking. And if 40 percent of the
people in the U.S. are reading one book or less per year, the other
182 million of us must be averaging over 16 books per year.
Reading habits have undoubtedly changed, since we have more
entertainment and research options available to us than ever before.
Some of those come thanks to Apple products like the iPod and Apple
TV, and Apple services like the iTunes Store. But the prime mover,
according to an IDC study of consumer online behavior, is that
Americans are now spending 32.7 hours per week online, almost twice
as much as they spend watching TV (16.4 hours per week) and more
than eight times as much as they spend reading newspapers and
magazines (3.9 hours). If you want to point to an industry in
trouble, look no further than newspapers, where circulation is in a
steep decline.
The key point is that time spent online is largely time spent
reading (and writing), whether email (57 billion messages sent in
2007 by IDC's estimate), blogs (over 70 million, with 1.5 million
posts per day, according to Technorati), or more traditional online
news and entertainment sources. People read more than they ever
have, thanks to the Internet, and new forms of reading are appearing
all the time. Witness the Japanese "cell phone novel," meant to be
read in serialized form on the ubiquitous mobile phone. The
Economist reports that since appearing in 2001, the genre has grown
to become an $82 million business in 2006, with some ebooks
receiving over a hundred thousand downloads per day.
I've called out all these numbers in order to encourage Apple to
acknowledge that people read vast quantities of text and to focus
hardware and software design efforts on making it easier to read on
the iPod, iPhone, and future devices. The iPod and iPhone can be
used to read some online content now, along with small bits of text
synced from a Mac, but the experience could be significantly
improved with native support for PDF, better user interface support
for stored text documents, and more.
But I, speaking as a reader and a publisher, would really like to
see Apple create a larger version of the iPod touch optimized not
just for a better video experience, but also for a best-of-breed
reading experience. Apple has the hardware design and user interface
chops that Amazon lacked when creating the Kindle, plus the
knowledge gleaned from the iPhone and the iPod touch in terms of
underlying operating system, physical design, and wireless
capabilities. Equally important is the iTunes Store, which offers an
unparalleled browsing and shopping experience for digital media - it
could be extended to support commercial ebooks, subscription-based
periodicals, and free blogs in exactly the way it currently supports
commercial audiobooks, TV show season passes, and free podcasts.
Such a device would make good business sense for Apple too. iPod
sales posted their slowest ever year-over-year growth rate, at only
5 percent, causing some analysts to opine that Apple has saturated
the market. Even committed iPod users will purchase replacement
iPods only so often. Like the iPhone, a new "iPod reader" in a
larger form factor would open up a new market for Apple, but unlike
the iPhone, it would be purchased in addition to an iPod nano or
iPod shuffle.
John Markoff has speculated that your dismissal of American reading
habits is actually a calculated setting of the stage for just such a
device. You didn't have kind words for cell phones or the MP3
players that predated the iPod, with justification - they were (and
for the most part remain) utterly awful.
So Steve, here's hoping that an upcoming special event will feature
an iPod reader, designed to do all the great things we've become
accustomed to from an iPod, but with the addition of native support
for downloading, managing, and displaying textual documents of all
sorts, whether in plain text, PDF, Microsoft Word's .doc, or XML
format.
The iPod already gives us access to Beethoven and Bob Dylan, to
snapshots of our children, and to The Incredibles and episodes of
Lost. Let's add to that The Hobbit and Harry Potter, 1984 and
Catch-22, and the complete works of Dr. Seuss. Book publishers have
been waiting for a mass-market ebook reader for years, the newspaper
companies are dying for a new online business model, and normal
people just want to read on the train to work. And of course, I'll
be happy to upload to the iTunes Store an entire library of Take
Control ebooks that are already popular with tens of thousands of
Mac users.
--Adam Engst, TidBITS Publishing Inc.
Apple Announces iPhone 2.0, Releases SDK
----------------------------------------
by Glenn Fleishman , Adam C. Engst
article link:
The iPhone 2.0 software development kit (SDK) is out, but the iPhone
2.0 software won't appear until June 2008, a year after the original
iPhone shipped. Apple promised in late 2007 that it would release an
SDK to allow developers to create their own iPhone software by
February 2008; what's a week between friends? Especially when Apple
appears to have provided more direct access to iPhone features and
networking than was expected. The SDK allows use of the cellular and
Wi-Fi connection, can sniff location, and offers direct access to
gestures, touches, and motion, tying into the iPhone's touchscreen
and accelerometer.
The SDK can be downloaded for free, and includes a simulator of the
beta version of the 2.0 software; the operating system update will
work on both the iPhone and iPod touch. (Apple's servers crumbled
under the initial load, with developers complaining about how long
it took to get the 2 GB disk image to download - they want it now!)
When released in June, the software will be a free upgrade for all
iPhone owners, but iPod touch users will have to pay a "nominal
fee," much like the recent $20 fee to get the mail, location,
widgets, and other items added in January. (Apple books revenue
immediately for iPods, requiring it to either restate revenue or
charge a fee to handle substantial new features; the iPhone's
revenue is accounted for over 24 months.)
Included in the June release will be a host of corporate networking
features designed to enhance security, support large-firm
infrastructure, and, most remarkably, interact directly with
Exchange servers through a license Apple obtained from Microsoft.
Might June also mark the release of a 3G iPhone? Nothing was said
about it, but that's what we're thinking now.
**iPhone SDK** -- Apple Vice President of iPhone Software Scott
Forstall said that developers would have access to the same APIs and
tools that Apple uses to build the iPhone apps, including the Core
OS layer, the Core Services layer, the Media layer, and a new
application framework called Cocoa Touch, along with an interface
simulator for testing software before it's installed on the real
hardware.
Developers confirmed for us that the simulator isn't a hardware
emulator that pretends to be an iPhone and runs native code. Rather,
programs compile for Mac OS X and run within the interface
simulator. It's a little odd, but may have been part of Apple's
intent in abstracting the hardware and providing less information to
phone unlockers, too; the less access to even simulated hardware,
the harder it is to jailbreak the iPhone or iPod touch.
The Core OS layer is largely the same as in Mac OS X, though with
better power management. The Core Services layer includes things
like SQLite for database storage and Core Location, which uses cell
tower and Wi-Fi network data to determine location, which only the
Maps application currently employs. The Media layer enables the
iPhone to play audio and video, and includes things like Core Audio
from Mac OS X. And lastly, Cocoa Touch replaces Cocoa as the
application framework upon which all applications are built; Cocoa
assumes a keyboard and mouse for input, whereas Cocoa Touch assumes
that all input comes via touch - single touch, multi-touch, and
gestures.
But that's just the foundation - the environment in which iPhone
apps are actually created is Xcode, running on a Mac with an Intel
processor and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Developers will use Interface
Builder to design and implement iPhone app interfaces, with all the
standard user interface elements already available. Other tools
include Instruments, which helps developers check memory usage and
measure performance, and the iPhone Simulator.
Apple showed a pair of demonstration applications, the first of
which was an image manipulation program that allows the user to
distort a photo with a touch or a pinch, and to erase the distortion
with a shake, like an Etch A Sketch; it reportedly took two days to
write. The second was Touch Fighter, a space shooter game in which
the user controls the spaceship via the iPhone's accelerometer and
fires by tapping the screen; Apple said the software took two weeks
to put together.
Apple pulled other developers into their campus to work with the
iPhone SDK a few weeks ago; some of those developers, it was
claimed, had never written software on a Mac before. Electronic Arts
showed a version of their upcoming game Spore in which the
accelerometer controls the spore moving around the screen, eating
smaller things and avoiding larger ones; once a certain point is
reached, the player uses the Evolution Editor via the touchscreen to
design a custom spore. Salesforce demoed an app that brings data
down from a sales database, giving business data that salespeople
need in real time. Next up, AOL showed a version of AOL Instant
Messenger (AIM) for the iPhone that will eventually provide the
level of instant messaging that many iPhone users have wanted
instead of SMS messaging. Epocrates showed a drug database for
doctors, and lastly, Sega demoed Super Monkey Ball, a version of a
console game that, ironically, needed an artist to scale up the
graphics for the iPhone's screen.
In general, it seems as though Apple has pulled back the curtains on
a great deal of what's possible on the iPhone, although it's not as
open as the Macintosh. Needless to say, SIM unlock software won't be
allowed, and access to the dock connector will be restricted, other
than what's already available via the "Made for iPod" program.
Nothing was said about whether Apple would enable support for the
iPhone to distribute a cellular-based Internet connection to a
laptop via Bluetooth, or if Bluetooth-based support for external
input devices like a keyboard would be allowed.
**The Free Market Costs 30%** -- The only way for users to acquire
iPhone apps will be through Apple's new App Store, which looks a lot
like the iTunes Store and likely takes advantage of everything Apple
has learned while selling four billion songs via iTunes. Free
applications will be hosted in the App Store for free, and revenue
from commercial applications will be split with developers such that
the developer gets 70 percent and Apple keeps 30 percent. Developers
also pay a $99 fee to distribute free and commercial programs via
the App Store. This fee is per developer, not per application, and
isn't required to download and use the SDK.
Response to the revenue sharing among the developer community was
largely positive, with many saying they'd expected a 60:40 split,
and would have of course preferred an 80:20 split. 70:30 is entirely
reasonable in our opinion, partly because that's an all-inclusive
fee covering processing, bandwidth, hosting, and marketing; in the
traditional book world, for instance, the split between publishers
and bookstores is often 50:50. Many ecommerce providers charge 10 to
15 percent for less than Apple will be providing via the App Store's
directory and interface.
Developers can choose, of course, to price their offerings higher
than they might otherwise to get back some margin, but they have to
avoid charging too much. Some developers may simply release free
iPhone software that's designed to work with desktop versions of
their software sold on a per-seat license. That could push more
sales of those applications, or increase licenses sold within
companies.
Of more concern was the question of what Apple would allow to be
sold through the App Store. Categories of applications that Apple
won't accept include anything related to porn, applications designed
to violate privacy, bandwidth hogs that could overtax AT&T's data
network, malicious programs, and anything that's illegal (which is
an ever-increasing amount of software, thanks to the DMCA). While a
bandwidth hog over Wi-Fi might be obnoxious, it might be not be
considered as much of a problem as filling AT&T's data pipe.
On the face of it, that sounds reasonable, but developers voiced
worries over just how Apple would decide, and whether Apple would
allow applications that seem to work around Apple's own business
model. Paul Kafasis, CEO of Rogue Amoeba, wondered whether Apple
would allow their applications on the iPhone. For instance, Apple
might not like that Airfoil reverse-engineered the AirTunes
protocol, that the listening portion of Radioshift would allow users
to listen to music without buying it from the iTunes Store, or that
Fission enables users to make ringtones rather than buy them from
the iTunes Store. Needless to say, it would be good if Apple would
provide rulings before development is complete, so developers don't
waste time on applications Apple won't allow.
Another question on our minds is if Apple will accept
non-applications for the App Store. For instance, what if a
developer writes a game and wants to sell additional levels for it?
Or, what if someone writes an ebook reader and others want to sell
ebooks in a compatible format? For more thoughts on what Apple could
do in this arena, see Adam's "Open Letter to Steve Jobs: In Support
of an iPod reader" (2008-03-05).
And what about trialware? Most developers offer 30-day trials of
their software, or programs that come with some features locked or
disabled. Paying a fee unlocks the program or activates it
permanently. Since Apple wants to be a gatekeeper for programs, will
they allow this kind of flexibility? Perhaps a "30-day" box that
developers can check to delete the program - a la iTunes movie
rentals - when the period is up if a user hasn't paid?
If Apple proves overly cautious about applications that are not
obviously problematic, we suspect that the vibrant iPhone hacking
community will refocus its efforts on hacking the iPhone to accept
applications that Apple won't host in the App Store.
While the SDK is freely downloadable, the iPhone Developer Program
won't accept all comers yet. Apple has a footnote on its developer
page that states, "The iPhone Developer Program will initially be
available to a limited number of developers in the U.S. and will
expand to other countries in the coming months." It's not quite
clear when and how Apple will open the iPhone Developer Program
fully.
**iPhone Goes to Work** -- The iPhone was widely criticized in its
first release for lacking a host of critical features for large
business information technology (IT) infrastructures (networks,
servers, software, computers, and handhelds), generally subsumed
under the term "enterprise." It didn't matter that Apple wasn't
targeting the iPhone at enterprise users; rather, those in the
business world knew iPhones would be brought in to use, and company
techies knew that they couldn't support them.
In the enterprise, chief information officers and IT workers want
the ability to integrate any new device with their existing
technology decisions - which often include specific sets of choices
around remote connections (via a virtual private network client),
network login policies (which may require digital certificates and
keychain fobs), and mail, calendar, contact, and directory services.
Until recently, there wasn't even a way for enterprise users to pay
for an iPhone on a corporate account - the iPhone was available only
for personal use (see "AT&T Offers iPhone for Enterprise,"
2008-01-23). Nevertheless, the iPhone saw significant uptake among
executives and others in large corporations. With iPhone 2.0, Apple
will be adding a slew of new features aimed at making the iPhone
into a better corporate worker bee, including full Microsoft
Exchange support.
Apple surprised many industry watchers by announcing that they'd
licensed Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync from Microsoft, as Apple
rarely licenses anything that's core to their purpose. But in the
enterprise, Exchange is one of the kings, and Apple had to pay
obeisance to get the pieces necessary to perform robust
synchronization and communication. With full Exchange support, Apple
can directly take on Research in Motion (RIM) and its BlackBerry
communicators. Apple took aim at RIM by criticizing their
single-point-of-failure approach to having all email and messaging
pass through RIM's servers; two recent brief failures have
highlighted RIM's vulnerability. In Apple's approach, the iPhone
will communicate directly with the enterprise's servers.
This will allow enterprise iPhone users to get real push services,
which was one of the big early draws to the BlackBerry, and is
available with only Yahoo Mail on the iPhone today. (Yahoo Mail's
approach is rather insecure, too, as I documented over at Macworld
many months ago.) The Exchange push support includes email, events,
and contacts. A contact added to an internal directory will appear
nearly immediately in an iPhone's contact list, for instance.
Other important additions include:
* Two-factor authentication. This security policy pairs a password
with a key fob, card, or sensor that provides an additional code or
offers biometric details (a fingerprint scan, for instance). The
password is meaningless without the other detail, the second factor.
* 802.1X and WPA/WPA2 Enterprise logins. While this sounds like a
bunch of nonsense to the untrained ear, it's music to an IT manager.
802.1X is generically a method to allow a device to connect to a
very limited part of a network while a user confirms their identity;
it's "port-based authentication" that firewalls the rest of the
network away from the device. 802.1X is used with both Ethernet and
Wi-Fi, although the most sensible modern Wi-Fi networks use a subset
of 802.1X called WPA/WPA2 Enterprise that requires that WPA (Wi-Fi
Protected Access) encryption methods are used. Without 802.1X
support, enterprise iPhone users have been unable to access some
corporate networks without unpleasant workarounds.
* Device configuration. It's a bear to manage handheld devices when
you have to set them up one at a time. Group configuration allows a
passel of devices to be configured at once from a console, and to
have the same basic configuration. This is especially important when
installing digital certificates; IT personnel often need to install
a common root certificate for the entire firm, and an individual
certificate that corresponds to the device or the user. (Back in the
early days of 802.1X, only certificate-based logins were available,
and Microsoft had to have each worker bring their laptop to an IT
office to get certificates installed by floppy before the laptop
could gain Wi-Fi access to the network.)
* Remote erasure. IT departments want to be able to "brick" a device
remotely, in order to wipe sensitive information from a lost or
stolen handheld, or one in the hands of an employee who is being
terminated...right...now! Apple added this feature to iPhone 2.0,
showing it in a demonstration where all the iPhone's data was wiped,
after which it rebooted sans any information. It was unclear from
the demonstration whether the device's SIM card, containing network
authentication, was disabled, although that's likely.
Yet to be answered is whether the enterprise features include a
persistent virtual network connection that works across whatever
network you're attached to. Several enterprise products designed for
mobile workers stick a server in the enterprise and client software
on the mobile device that uses a special property of TCP/IP
networking to suspend a connection when a network is switched. This
allows something as intensive as streaming media to halt, wait for
the network to change, and resume.
This would be an ideal addition to the iPhone, because it combines
security with seamless access, and reduces disruption for the user.
Apple could build such technology in, but there's no standard on the
server side, so they would have to develop or license such
technology. More likely, the SDK would allow such a client to be
created, but limit its distribution to enterprise customers.
Enterprises can pay a $299 fee to create programs that can be
distributed for in-house use only, via a version of the App Store
that will enable a corporation to distribute internal applications
securely. An internal App Store may also be how enterprise-focused
software developers will distribute their packages, which are
typically licensed for a site or on a per-user or per-system basis,
to their customers.
**Xcode Marks the Spot** -- It's clear that Apple's decision to
develop Xcode as a single, unified development platform has wound up
being as important to the company's long-term success as their move
to Unix with Mac OS X, and their switch to Intel processors to
ensure having the fastest possible computer. While developers have
varying opinions about Xcode, its ability to extend development so
rapidly from PowerPC to Intel processors during that transition, and
now to leap over to mobile devices, allowing programmers to leverage
their existing knowledge, means that Apple can now throw its entire
existing development community at the fastest-selling mobile device
in history.
iPhone developers, start your simulated engines!
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/10-Mar-08
------------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson
article link:
**Powerbook G4 "Fan" Club** -- The fan on a reader's PowerBook won't
let up; will restoring the laptop's firmware to its factory settings
fix the problem? (2 messages)
**Any dotMac offer in France?** Renewing a .Mac account for less than
Apple's fee (which can be done by purchasing a boxed license from
Amazon and other outlets) is not limited to U.S. customers. (3
messages)
**Document Scanning Software** -- What solutions are available to
archive a lot of paper documentation digitally? Is PDF a safe bet
for making searchable copies? (30 messages)
**Replacement For MS Publisher** -- Readers reveal software products
that can read Microsoft Publisher files and convert them to a
workable format on the Mac. (6 messages)
**Terminal Application** -- Really, who doesn't need to pass a file
from a Mac to an HP handheld calculator over USB? Here's how. (11
messages)
**Time Capsule Ships with Support for USB Drive Backups** -- The
network backup solution many people are waiting for is just out of
range, as Glenn Fleishman discovers that Time Capsule will perform
Time Machine backups to an attached USB hard disk. C'mon Apple,
enable this feature on regular AirPort Extreme base stations. At the
very least, we'll all stop bugging you about it. (1 message)
**Open Letter to Steve Jobs: In Support of an iPod reader** -- TidBITS
Talk readers respond to Adam's open letter to Apple concerning the
development of an electronic book reader. (23 messages)
**iCal Plug-in** -- Several public iCal calendars are available that
keep track of major and minor holidays. Subscribing to them might
help you remember the next one. (4 messages)
**Fortune: The Trouble with Steve Jobs** -- Fortune's cover story on
Jobs and Apple brings up a question: Does a good CEO need to be a
tyrant? (2 messages)
**Will the iPhone SDK allow for Bluetooth access to peripherals?** It
looks as if some readers' dreams of using a Bluetooth keyboard (or
other peripheral) with an iPhone or iPod touch won't be coming true
with the iPhone SDK. (4 messages)
**What's better than iPhoto?** After encountering problems with iPhoto
6, a reader wonders if another program can do a better job of
managing digital photos. (2 messages)
$$
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